Have you ever been in a situation where you were trying to talk so someone who is just out of range for you to hear them clearly? For the design challenge at the end of this unit, students will be asked to create devices that allow them to communicate using sounds rather than speech. To prepare for the challenge, students will be learning how different sounds can be created by various vibrating materials. They will learn that sound pitch and volume can change depending on the size of vibrating object. To learn these concepts, students will conduct tests on various objects in their school and home environment and classify these objects by pitch and loudness.

Lessons in this Unit:

How do you make sound?

What is sound?

Communicating with sound.

Permutations on the lesson.

Design challenge: build a sound making device that can be used to communicate messages.

Standards

NGSS 1-PS4-1: Plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate. [Clarification Statement: Examples of vibrating materials that make sound could include tuning forks and plucking a stretched string. Examples of how sound can make matter vibrate could include holding a piece of paper near a speaker making sound and holding an object near a vibrating tuning fork.]

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT. 1.MD.C.4: Organize, represent, and interpret data with up to three categories; ask and answer questions about the total number of data points, how many in each category, and how many more or less are in one category than in another.

To prepare students to understand the learning objective, we’ll teach them about the real world uses of Morse code.

Activity:

Ask the class to brainstorm different ways they could communicate with each other. Students might come up with examples such as:

Talking

Sign language

Flashing a light on and off

Hitting an object

Binary numbers

Calling them on the phone.

Using Skype or a similar service

Teacher Led Discussion:

What are the benefits and drawbacks of each of these suggestions? Can you understand someone clearly if they are really far away? Can you hear someone tapping if it’s really noisy?

Consider tying in examples from history such as:

Telegrams

Communication in World Wars

Lighthouses

Asking for help (SOS)

Tapping a glass during a party to get everyone’s attention.

Present the challenge to students. You are trying to talk to your friend across the field or lake, but you cannot hear each other well enough to make out what each of you are saying. How could you communicate to each using objects from your surroundings?

Have students form groups. Using materials around the classroom, can students come up with a way to communicate with each other without the use of language?

Assessment

This lesson will give students a chance to notice objects within their space that can be used to make sound.

Activities:

Ask students to identify objects that make sound.

Guided discovery: Are there any common themes they notice? What do you have to do to make sound? Does an object make sound if nothing is moving? Does an object make sound when it moves?

Allow the students to pick objects in the classroom that they could make sounds with. Let them try making sounds with that object.

Guided discovery: What do they have to do to make the object make sound? Is the sound loud or soft? High pitch or low pitch?

Have students make separate piles of objects that are loud and soft. Have students mix the piles together again and recategorize them based on high and low pitch.

Have students grab an object they think produces a loud sound. Bring them outside or to the gym and have them try and tap a rhythm on their object to another student standing on the other side of a field or gym. Have the other student try and tap the same rhythm back to the first student.

Guided discussion: Ask students if they think their object is loud enough to hear from far away. Would they pick a different object if they could?

Some examples of possible objects that could be used to make sound include: hand clapping, undersides of desks, wastebaskets, buckets, or tin cans.

Materials

A variety of objects that can be used to make sound (trash cans, tin cans, boxes, plastic containers, buckets)

Student recording sheet, 1 per student

Ability to show internet videos to classes

Professional Preparation

Make available a variety of objects that can be used to make sounds.

Be prepared to assign groups in class.

Learning Targets

Students are able to organize, represent, and interpret data between the categories of pitch and loudness.

Students are able to ask and answer questions about the total number of objects tested, how many objects in each category, and how many more or less are in one category than in another.

Students are able to document observations on provided handout.

Students can plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound.

Assessment

Can the student verbally explain or demonstrate how an object makes sound?

Place cardboard over a speaker and cover the cardboard with a thin layer of sand.

Play a sustained sound through the speaker and look at the patterns the sand creates.

Change the pitch of the sound and notice how the pattern in the sand changes.

Play music and watch the sand dance around.

Have students draw their observations.

As an alternative to sand, consider using chalk. Chalk may help visualize the vibration patterns by leaving a mark after it has been brushed off. Consider using black construction paper or black cloth to improve contrast.

Learning Targets

The Challenge: You an your friends want to send messages to each other across a long distance (a soccer field, a lake, etc.) during the day. It’s too bright outside to see each other’s flashlights. How could you communicate to each other using objects from your surroundings?

Students can work individually or in groups to design and build something that can make a loud sound at different pitches.

Give students time to build multiple prototypes, or multiple iterations.

Have students look for various objects around the home or in the class that they could use.

Test:

Have students test their designs in an open space. Can they hear their instrument?

From 5 feet away? 15 feet? 30 feet? 50 feet? 100 feet or more?

Do some pitches travel farther than others?

Have students make up their own messaging system, or they may use Morse code if they’d prefer.

Can their devices communicate a message across different distances?

Have the class categorize the qualities of the sounds made by their peer’s devices.

Which devices were the loudest? The quietest?

Which were high-pitched or low-pitched?

Which devices were clearest across the longer distances?

Have the students discuss why they think these qualities differ between devices.

Criteria of project:

Object is capable of producing a loud sound that can be heard from a distance.

The object is able to produce sounds in rapid succession (there is no long delay between each sound produced).

Object can produce a minimum of two different pitches.

Students have added their own creative flare to their devices.

Materials

Print copies of Morse code chart for students to refer to if desirable.

A large area, such as a field or a gym

Student recording sheet, 1 per student

Professional Preparation

Make necessary preparations to allow students to test their sounds outside or in the gymnasium.

Learning Targets

Students are able to plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate.

Students are able to find and use objects that can be used to communicate over a long distance.

Students are able to communicate basic messages using Morse code or their own communication code.

Students are able to organize, represent, and interpret data between the categories of pitch and loudness.

Students are able to ask and answer questions about the total number of objects tested, how many objects in each category, and how many more or less are in one category than in another.

Assessment

Students build a device capable of making sound.

Students are able to classify the sounds of their classmates devices based off pitch and sound volume.

Students are able to send basic messages to each other using their sound producing device.

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